Get a pile of free one-shots of vintage instruments for Ableton Live

Get a gift that keeps on giving: a massive trove of one-shot samples of classic instruments that begs you to make your own sounds. That’s the latest freebie packaged for Ableton Live (though you could also snag the samples for other tools, too).

I’ve made no secret of being a fan of Francis Preve’s sound design prowess, honed in years of work for companies like Roland and Ableton. His latest FM pack was a stroke of genius, and this year saw another freebie in the form of a love letter to Prince and his unique take on drums.

This selection actually compiles one-shot samples given away over the years on his blog. They’re not just samples – in typically obsessive fashion, Fran has wrapped them into useful macros and given you updated effects to go with them, plus added clips to demonstrate what the heck they’re for.

But because there are no presets per se, this is a perfect download for sound designers. You’re not in the dark, in that macros and clips are ready to go. But you can instantly set about making these your own. And that’s refreshing, not because I think that making your own sounds is somehow more authentic, but because making your own sounds is more personal and frankly more fun.

Also, you can make some unusual sounds by doing extreme re-pitching of these 59 C3 one-shots, too. I actually really love the sonic effects of doing that, to the point that I’m frequently pulling just C3 out of sample libraries and then dropping it on Simpler or other samplers to re-pitch. (Seriously. You can get a lot of character that way.)

I know I’ll be using it to play around with productions. I think I’ll also dig into the audio folder and drop the one-shots on my iPad to make something on the plane.

Here’s a demo:

Specs:

From 2011-2015, Francis Preve released a series of oneshot collections for Live via his blog. Over the years, these packs have been downloaded by thousands of Ableton users. Now, that series of instruments has been collected into a single free Symplesound pack for Live 9.7 and higher.

Featuring intuitive instrument racks, integrated effects, and swappable MIDI clips that demonstrate each synth, Oneshots Volume 1 is a great way to get a taste of these classic synths via Symplesound’s critically acclaimed approach to Ableton Live.